Hungry, But Too Tired To Cook? Try 30 to 40 Olives

Submission 42,286

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About

Hungry, But Too Tired To Cook? Try 30 to 40 Olives refers to an exploitable image macro that suggests the reader eat 30-40 olives directly out of the jar with their fingers to satisfy their hunger when they're too tired to cook. The meme was posted to Instagram in January 2020 and gained viral attention, inspiring new variations replacing olives with something else edible, or in more ironic takes on the meme, inedible.

Origin

On January 15th, 2020, Instagram^[1] user memer posted an image macro showing a pile of olives captioned, "Off work late? Hungry, but too tired to cook? Try 30 to 40 olives. 30 to 40 olives: an easy weeknight dinner. eat them directly out of the jar with your fingers. you will certainly not regret eating 30 to 40 olives," garnering over 840 likes in two years (shown below). This is the first known post sharing the meme.

Off work late? Hungry, but too tired to cook? Try 30 to 40 olives. 30 to 40 olives: an easy weeknight dinner. eat them directly out of the jar with your fingers. you will certainly not regret eating 30 to 40 olives.

Spread

The meme gained viral spread the month it was posted to Instagram. January 16th, 2020, a Redditor shared it to /r/1200isplenty,^[2] garnering over 2,600 upvotes in two years. On January 17th, 2020, it was posted to Imgur,^[3] garnering over 148,000 views and 2,500 upvotes. On January 27th, 2020, it was included in an eBaum's World^[4] collection titled, "Fifty-Five Random Memes For Your Procrastination Session," gaining over 2,100 views in two years. On May 11th, 2021, Instagram^[5] user thesurrealbank posted the meme, gaining over 56,000 likes in a year.

On February 8th, 2022, Facebook^[6] page A Grotesque Discontinuity in the Order of Things posted a photoshopped version of the meme replacing olives with Cheez-Its and altering the caption, garnering over 120 shares and 150 reactions in eight months (shown below). This is the first known variant of the meme.

On August 30th, Instagram^[7] user trashcanpaul shared the original meme, garnering over 143,000 likes in just over a month. On September 21st, Instagram^[8] user thecreatinecowboy posted a new version of the meme about Diet Pepsi, garnering over 700 likes in three weeks. On October 7th, Twitter^[9] user @freddie_shanel posted a new version of the meme about clementines, garnering over 62,000 likes and 5,900 retweets in four days (shown below, left). On October 10th, Instagram^[10] user trashcanpaul posted a version of the meme about Nerds Gummy Clusters, garnering over 71,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

On October 11th, Instagram^[11] user manicpixiememequeen posted a version of the meme about eating Polly Pocket toys, garnering over 10,000 likes in under a day (shown below).